“Mr. Brookfield, there are several other ladies to choose from…”

Millicent turned to face Nicholas. “Before we say anything more, I feel compelled to point out that I’m merely the one who composed the advertisement. I assure you, it’s quite all right if you find you prefer another of them.”

So Miss Matthews had a sense of fair play and generosity. Nick liked that about her. But somehow he knew her suggestion was something he didn’t even want to consider. It was incomprehensible how he could sense that already, but there it was.

“I know you will find this difficult to believe, since we’ve only just met, and we really don’t know each other at all,” he said. “I can well understand that it appears I’m making a snap judgment, and perhaps I am, but I would like the opportunity to get to know you better. I—I find you very attractive indeed, Miss Matthews, and that’s the simple truth….”

LAURIE KINGERY

makes her home in central Ohio, where she is a “Texan-in-exile.” Formerly writing as Laurie Grant for Harlequin Historical and other publishers, she is the author of eighteen previous books and the 1994 winner of a Readers’ Choice Award in the short historical category. She has also been nominated for Best First Medieval and Career Achievement in Western Historical Romance by RT Book Reviews. When not writing her historicals, she loves to travel, read, participate on Facebook and Shoutlife and write her blog on www.lauriekingery.com.

Laurie Kingery
Mail Order Cowboy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

—Micah 6:8

To my wonderful editor, Melissa Endlich,

who always makes me strive to be the best writer I can be, and always, to my husband, Tom

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Letter to Reader

Questions for Discussion

Prologue

Simpson Creek, Texas, July 1865

“The problem, as I see it,” Millicent Matthews announced in her forthright way, looking around the edges of the quilt at the members of the Ladies Aid Society, “is that we unmarried ladies are likely to remain so, given the absolute lack of single men who’ve come home to Simpson Creek from the war. The few men who did return were already married, and while I’m very happy for their wives, of course—” she added quickly as one of the town’s matrons looked up “—the rest of us will have to leave or remain single unless Decisive Action is Taken.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Milly,” said her sister Sarah, staring down at the Wedding Ring pattern as if it held the answer to their dilemma. “Perhaps not all of our men are able to travel yet from wherever they were when the war ended. They might be recovering from wounds, or the effects of confinement in northern prisons…”

Milly felt a rush of compassion for Sarah, whom she knew was still holding out hope that her beau would yet return, despite the fact he had been reported missing in action late last year. Since then, they’d heard nothing more. “Sarah, it’s July,” she pointed out gently but firmly. “The war was over in April. We’ve seen the casualty lists. All the other Simpson Creek men have been accounted for, one way or the other. The ones who survived have managed to make it to Texas. If Jesse was still recovering elsewhere, surely he would have sent word by now.” She let the statement hang in the air.

Sarah’s gaze fell to her lap and her lip quivered. “I…I know you’re right, Milly. I just keep hoping…”

Across from them, Mrs. Detwiler pursed her lips.

Milly laid a hand comfortingly on her sister’s shoulder. She was sure the color of Sarah’s dove-gray dress was a concession to her uncertainty as to whether she was mourning or waiting.

Milly was just about to say “Jesse would want you to move on” when Mrs. Detwiler cleared her throat.

“We need to accept the lot in life that the Lord sees fit to give us,” the woman said heavily, clutching the mourning brooch on her bodice. “I lost my own dear George ten years ago, God rest his soul, and I have learned to resign myself to my widowhood, even—dare I say it—treasure my single state.” Her expression indicated Sarah would do well to be so wise.

“Mrs. Detwiler, I admire the way you’ve adapted to your loss,” Milly began tactfully, not wanting to offend the widow of the town’s previous preacher. “But you had many happy years with Mr. Detwiler, and raised several children.”

“Seven, to be exact.” Mrs. Detwiler sniffed, and raised her eyes heavenward.

“Seven,” Milly echoed. “But Sarah and I and several others here—” she saw furtive nods around the quilt frame “—are young, and have never been married. We’d like to become wives and raise children, too. And there are others who were widowed by the war and left with children to raise and land to work or businesses to manage. They need to find good husbands again.”

“In my opinion, you would do better to devote yourselves to prayer and good works, Miss Matthews, and let the good Lord send you a husband if He wishes you to have one.”

Milly could feel Sarah tensing beside her. Sarah never liked confrontations. But Milly had seen the spark of interest and approval in the eyes of half a dozen young ladies plying their needles on the quilt, and their silent support emboldened her.

“I agree that prayer and good works are important to every Christian, of course, and I have been praying about the matter. Sometimes I think the Lord helps those who help themselves.”

At this point Mrs. Detwiler cleared her throat again. Loudly. “I hardly think this is the time or place to discuss such a frivolous topic.” From her pocket, she pulled out a gold watch, a legacy of her dear departed George. “I must return home soon, and we have not yet discussed the raffle to be held for the Benefit of the Deserving Poor of San Saba County. If we don’t stop chattering and keep stitching, ladies, this quilt will not be ready to be raffled off at the event.”

Milly tucked an errant lock of dark hair that had escaped the neat knot at the nape of her neck and bit back a sigh of frustration. As president of the Ladies Aid Society, Mrs. Detwiler had an obligation to keep the meetings on track, but she suspected the widow was all too happy to have an excuse to stifle the discussion.

“You’re right, Mrs. Detwiler, of course. I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn,” she said in the meekest tone she could manage. “Perhaps it would be best to discuss this subject at another time, with only those concerned present. So why don’t the unmarried ladies who are interested meet back here again tomorrow, say at four o’clock? We’ll serve lemonade and cookies.”

Chapter One

“Sarah, thank you again for making the cookies and the lemonade,” Milly whispered as the ladies began to arrive in the Simpson Creek Church social hall. It must have been the dozenth time she’d thanked her sister since volunteering to supply refreshments, knowing it would be Sarah who actually made the cookies. Milly’s baking efforts always ended up overbrowned, if not completely charred.

“I told you, you’re welcome,” Sarah whispered back, smiling. “I couldn’t run a meeting the way you’re about to. We all have our gifts.”

Milly was none too sure she had any gifts worth boasting of, but what she was about to propose to these ladies had been her idea.

“Sarah, we’re going to need more chairs,” she whispered again, this time in pleased astonishment as women kept filing in. They had set out only half a dozen, including the ones for her and Sarah. The next few minutes were a busy bustle of carrying chairs and making a bigger circle. Finally, in all, there were ten never-married ladies and two widows, plus the mother of Prissy Gilmore, who probably wanted to keep a careful eye on what Milly Matthews was proposing—especially because Prissy’s father was the mayor.

“Ladies, I want to thank you all for coming,” Milly said, pitching her voice louder than the buzz of conversation as everyone settled themselves in their chairs and greeted one another. “I’d like to open this meeting with prayer.” She waited a moment while everyone quieted and bowed their heads.

“Our heavenly Father,” Milly began, “we ask You would bless us this day and direct our efforts as we seek to find an answer to a problem. Guide us and bless us, and keep us in the center of Your will. Amen.” She raised her head, and as the others raised theirs and opened their eyes, she saw them looking expectantly at her.

Milly took a deep breath. “As I was saying two days ago as we worked on the quilt, we single women in Simpson Creek face a problem now that the war is over and there are no single men here—”

“So what are you proposing we do, Milly?” interrupted Prissy Gilmore impatiently. “Become mail order brides and leave Simpson Creek?”

Milly laughed. “Merciful heavens, no! I’m not going to, anyway. I love this town. I don’t want to leave it and Sarah and go marry, sight unseen, some prospector in Nevada Territory or a widower farmer with a passel of children in Nebraska. I want a husband who can run the ranch Papa left us and defend it against the Comanches if they come raiding. Y’all know Sarah and I have been coping—” barely, she thought “—with only our foreman, old Josh, and his nephew Bobby to help us.”

Josh and Bobby weren’t enough, she knew. Once, the Matthews bunkhouse had housed six other cowhands, with more hired at roundup time. Josh was old and becoming more and more crippled with rheumatism, while Bobby wasn’t even shaving yet.

Josh had taken her aside only the night before and explained that if they didn’t find a way to make the ranch productive again, they might lose it to taxes. They were already losing cattle left and right to thieving Indians and rustlers, but there was no way an old man and a young boy could protect the place.

“Maybe y’ought to sell out and move into town, Miss Milly,” Josh had said. “Don’t worry ’bout me ’n the boy. We’ll find a place somewhere.” But who would hire such an old cowboy and a boy still wet behind the ears?

“I’m sure you could interest some Yankee soldier or his carpetbagger friend in your ranch,” Martha Gilmore, Prissy’s mother, suggested with a smirk. “They’d be only too willing to marry you to get their hands on a good piece of Texas ranch property.”

Several of the young ladies looked dismayed. “Y-you wouldn’t do something like that, would you, Milly?” asked Jane Jeffries, a young widow who still wore black despite losing her husband midway through the war.

“Of course not, Jane,” Milly assured her. “I’m looking for a good Texas man, or at the very least, a Southerner. I do realize there are some things worse than being an old maid. Marrying a Yankee soldier or a carpetbagger certainly falls into that category.”

“I’m relieved to hear you say so,” Emily Thompson said from across the circle. “So what course of action did you have in mind?”

Milly stared out the open window of the church social hall. “I thought perhaps we could place an advertisement in a newspaper, not the Simpson Creek News, of course, but a larger city’s newspaper such as the Houston Telegraph. It just so happens our Uncle William is the editor of that paper, so I’m sure he’d help us.” She smiled at the other ladies. “We’ll include a post office address where interested bachelors could reply. Of course they’d be required to send references, and a picture, if at all possible.”

“You mean,” asked Martha Gilmore, “to enlist mail order grooms?”

Milly blinked, startled to hear her idea summed up that way, as several around the circle tittered. She considered the phrase. “Yes, I suppose you could call them that.”

“Oh, Milly, I don’t know…” Sarah murmured un easily.

Milly pretended she hadn’t heard. Sarah was always apprehensive about daring new ideas. “Who’s with me?” she asked, making eye contact with each in turn—Prissy Gilmore, Jane Jeffries, Ada Spencer, Maude Harkey, Emily Thompson, Caroline Wallace, Hannah Kennedy, Bess Lassiter, Polly Shackleford, Faith Bennett. And they met her gaze, some shyly, some boldly, but all with interest.

“How would such an ad read, Milly?” asked Ada Spencer curiously.

Milly thought back to what she had begun composing in her mind at the meeting once Mrs. Detwiler had redirected the conversation. “I’m open to suggestions, of course, but here’s what I had so far,” she said, pulling a folded sheet of paper from her reticule. “Wanted: Marriage-Minded Bachelors,” she read aloud. “Quality Christian gentlemen who desire to make the acquaintance of refined, genteel young ladies with a view to matrimony are requested to send a letter to—and here we would need a name for our group, ladies—References are required, and those sending photographs will be given preference. Drunkards, Yankees, Carpetbaggers and other riffraff need not apply.”

“I think that’s excellent, Milly!” Maude Harkey cried, clapping. “Bravo! You’ve certainly covered everything.”

Some of Milly’s apprehension left her in the face of Maude’s enthusiasm and the approving glances of several ladies around the circle. “Thanks, Maude,” Milly said. “But we need a name for this group. What shall we call our organization? The Marriageable Misses? The Wedding Club?”

Mrs. Gilmore looked as if she wanted to say something but she held her peace.

“How about The Simpson Creek Society for Promotion of Marriage?” Caroline Wallace suggested.

It was a more formal name than Milly would have preferred, but she wanted each lady to feel she had a say in the formation of their organization, and everyone seemed to like this one.

“All right, that seems to be the consensus,” Milly said. “That’s what we’ll call ourselves. The rest of the advertisement could read, ‘Inquiries should be directed to the Simpson Creek Society for the Promotion of Marriage at post office box number—’ Caroline, can we arrange for a post office box before we leave town so I know what number to put in the ad?”

Caroline, the daughter of the postmaster, nodded. “I happen to know number seventeen is empty. I’ll tell Papa.”

“Will you need any money for the advertisement, Milly?” asked Jane Jeffries. Several of the ladies’ faces registered dismay. If there was one other thing the unwed ladies of Simpson Creek lacked, it was ready cash.

“I don’t think so,” Milly said, and hoped it was true. “I’ll write to my uncle this very day, sending our advertisement copy.” She was counting on Uncle William to run the advertisement gratis, or at the very least run it at a discount.

“Well, I think that went well, don’t you?” Milly said, after the last of the ladies had gone home and she and Sarah were alone in the social hall. She munched on one of the few cookies that hadn’t been devoured by the Simpson Creek Society for the Promotion of Marriage.

“Yes…yes, it did,” Sarah said, her tone thoughtful as she scooped up the plates and cups filled with crumbs and remains of the lemonade. “They all seemed very excited about your ideas.”

“But what about you, Sarah?” Milly asked. She hadn’t been able to gauge Sarah’s reaction during the meeting. “Are you going to be one of us, or do you think it’s a foolish idea? Would you rather I hadn’t suggested it?”

Sarah’s green eyes lost focus. “I…I don’t know. Won’t it look as if we’re somewhat…oh, I don’t know…fast?”

“Oh, I don’t think so, not if the advertisement is worded properly, as I believe it is,” Milly said. She had been very satisfied when the group agreed that the words she had composed in her head were perfect as they stood. “We’ll be able to tell by the tone of their letters if they’ve gotten the wrong impression, I should think, and we simply won’t extend an invitation to come and meet us.”

“I suppose you’re right…” Sarah said, but her tone was far from certain. “But Milly, what if—what if the men who answer the advertisement lie about their qualifications? What if they turn out to be men of bad character? Why, a man could say anything about himself on paper, and turn out to be quite the opposite,” Sarah said, twisting a fold of her apron. “Why, he could be an outlaw, or a cardsharp—or a Yankee!”

“That’s true,” Milly admitted frankly. “But if we find that to be the case, we’ll send them packing. And you know, there are no guarantees when one meets a man in the usual way either,” she pointed out.

Sarah looked puzzled. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Just look at that woman in Goliad we heard about, Bertha McPherson,” Milly said, with a wave of her hand, as if the woman stood before them. “She married that fellow from Goliad who courted her for six months, and once they tied the knot, she found out he still had a living wife back in St. Louis.”

Sarah sighed. “I always thought we’d marry boys from Simpson Creek, boys we’d known all our lives.”

“I know…” Milly had thought so, too. Just as she had believed the brave talk of the boys who’d marched off to war, promising they’d be back, victorious, in six months. “Yes, what we’re doing is a leap of faith,” she admitted. “But would you rather take a chance, or die an old maid? I don’t want to be called ‘Old Maid Milly Matthews,’ thank you very much.”

“They’re already calling you ‘Marrying Milly’,” Sarah said, then put a hand over her mouth as if she hadn’t meant to say it.

Milly blinked. “Who’s ‘they’?”

“Folks in town,” Sarah said, facing her sister as Milly also sank into a chair beside her. “I overheard Mr. Patterson talking to Mrs. Detwiler in the mercantile yesterday. They hadn’t seen me come in. She was telling him what you’d said in the Ladies Aid Society meeting the other day. Folks in town are already calling us the Spinsters Club.”

Milly winced but reached out and put an arm around her sister’s shoulder. “We mustn’t mind what people say, Sarah. People will always gossip.” She hadn’t missed the fact that Sarah had said us, and her heart glowed with love for her. Worried as she was, her sister was joining her in this project.

“Have you prayed about this?” Sarah asked. “I mean, I know we opened the meeting with prayer—that was a lovely prayer you said, by the way—but have you been praying about this? A lot?”

“Of course,” Milly said. “I’ve been praying for months, ever since the war ended and those first few men started returning, and none of them were the single men on the Missing in Action lists. But I suppose we’d both feel more confident if we prayed now, right?” They had always prayed together, first as a family and now just the two of them, after losing first their mother and more recently their father. Milly had always found it a source of strength.

Sarah nodded. Milly took her hand, and they bowed their heads and sought the Lord’s blessing on their enterprise.

Chapter Two

Nicholas Brookfield, late of Her Majesty’s Bombay Light Cavalry, reined in the handsome bay he had purchased after leaving the stagecoach and studied Simpson Creek. A small town, more like a village really, consisting of one main street, with a sprinkling of buildings on both sides of the dusty thoroughfare. Signs proclaimed the presence of a saloon, a boardinghouse, a general store, a livery, a combination barbershop-bathhouse, and at the far end of the street, a church. Branching off from the middle of the main street was another road with several houses of various sizes, some sturdy-looking fieldstone or brick two-stories, others smaller and of more humble construction, wood and even adobe cottages.

He wondered if Miss Millicent Matthews lived in any of these, or if her home was out on one of the ranches he’d passed on the road into Simpson Creek. And for the twentieth time, he wondered if he was on a fool’s errand. Had the intermittent fever he was prone to, and which had laid him low once again when he arrived in Texas a week ago, finally seared his brain, rendering him mad? What else explained why he’d let curiosity take control and come here in search of the writer of that intriguing advertisement, instead of going straight to Austin to the job that awaited him?

He glanced at his clothing, deeming it too dusty from his travels to make a good impression on a lady. Pulling out his pocket watch, a gift from his brother when Nicholas achieved the rank of captain, he discovered it was only eleven. He would do well, he decided, to bespeak a room at the boardinghouse and visit the barbershop-bathhouse before paying a call on Miss Matthews, assuming someone in this dusty little hamlet would tell him where he could find her.

“Have there been any inquiries about our advertisement?” Prissy Gilmore asked, after all the ladies of the Simpson Creek Society for the Promotion of Marriage had settled themselves in a circle in the church social hall.

“Not yet,” Milly admitted, as cheerfully as she could manage. “But it has been only two weeks. It would take time for a man to read the advertisement, compose a letter, perhaps have a tintype taken if he doesn’t have one ready, and for that letter to reach the Simpson Creek post office.” Afraid of discouraging her friends, she wasn’t about to admit she had made a pilgrimage to the post office every other day this week, and her only reward had been the letter she now brought out from her reticule.

“However,” she said, smiling as she drew it out of the envelope and unfolded it, “I do have this note from our Uncle William, who you will remember is the editor of the Houston Telegraph.”

“Dear Millicent and Sarah,” she read, “I hope this letter finds you well. I wanted you to know I am in receipt of your rather interesting advertisement copy and have published it (though I must confess with some trepidation as to what your late father would have thought of your scheme) in accordance with your request. I have to say this advertisement caused no small amount of talk in the Telegraph office and around the town. Word of it and of your group has spread to those cities with whose newspapers we share articles, so it may be possible that you will receive inquiries from as far away as Charleston, South Carolina, and even New York City.”

Milly folded up the letter and stuck it triumphantly back in her pocket without reading the paragraph that followed, in which her Uncle William implored her to be very cautious in meeting the gentlemen who would write in response.

“So you see, ladies,” she said, infusing every word with confidence, “our advertisement has made a stir. I’m sure we will begin receiving inquiries any time now—perhaps even in today’s post!”

A pleased hum of excitement rose from the ladies sitting around her.

Maude Harkey raised her hand. “Milly, assuming these letters start arriving, we’ve never discussed how it will be decided who gets matched with whom. How will that take place?”

“That’s a good question, and one I think the Society should decide as a group,” Milly responded, settling her hands in her lap. “What do you think, ladies?” She watched as they all looked at one another before Jane Jeffries raised a timid hand.

“I think we should let the gentlemen decide,” she announced, then ducked her head as if astonished at her own audaciousness.

“Yes, but how?” Milly prodded.

Jane shrugged.

“We could have a party,” said Prissy Gilmore, who’d managed to avoid bringing her mother. “With chaperones, of course, so Mama won’t have a fit—and the gentlemen could be presented to all of us. They could decide whom they preferred.” She smoothed a wayward curl that had escaped her artful coiffure.

“Yes, but what if only one of them comes at a time?” Sarah asked. “Won’t he feel awfully uncomfortable, as if he’s on display like a prize bull at a county fair?”

“Well, he would be, wouldn’t he?” Emily Thompson tittered. “Poor man. But perhaps it won’t have to be that way. From the sound of that letter, it seems as if they might well come in herds!”

“Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Then each of us could have our pick!” Ada Spencer said with a sigh, and everyone laughed at her blissful expression.

“Maybe the gentleman will express a preference as to the type of woman he’s seeking,” Maude Harkey said. “He might have a decided interest in short redheads, such as myself.”

There was more laughter.

“Don’t forget, ladies,” Milly reminded them, “as more and more matches are made, the number of ladies looking over the applicants will be fewer and fewer. Eventually there will be no more need for the Society, God willing, for all of us will be married.”

“Amen,” Ada Spencer said. “But the fact remains, we have yet to receive the first response to our advertisement. I hope we don’t end up as the laughingstocks of Texas.”

Her words hung in the air, and once more the ladies were glancing uneasily around at each other.

“I think we ought to pray about it now,” Milly said. “And you’ve all been praying about it at home, haven’t you?”

There were solemn nods around the circle.

“Very well, then,” Milly said. “Who would like to—”

Sarah raised her hand. “I think when we pray, we ought to include something about God’s will being done. I mean, it might not be God’s will for all of us to be married, you know.”

Milly opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again. The idea that the Lord might intend for her to go through life as an unmarried lady for whatever reason He had was startling, but it could be true.

“You’re right, Sarah,” she said, humbled. “Would you lead us in pr—”

Before she could finish her sentence, there was a knock at the door of the social hall. Then, without waiting to be invited in, a tousle-headed boy flung open the door.

Milly recognized Dan Wallace, Caroline’s brother, and son of the town postmaster.

Caroline called out, “Dan, is anything wrong? We’re having a meeting here—”

“I know, Caroline,” Dan said. “But Papa said to show this gent where to go.”

Caroline’s brow furrowed, and Milly saw her look past her brother. “What gent?”

“He’s waitin’ outside. He came t’ the post office. Says he’s come in response to the advertisement y’all placed in that Houston newspaper. He’s lookin’ for Miss Milly, an’ I knew she’d be here with you ’cause a’ the meetin’.”

Milly felt the blood drain from her face. It shouldn’t be happening this way. A man couldn’t have just shown up.

She looked uncertainly at the others. “But…but he was to have written a letter first,” she protested, “so we could evaluate his application, then send him an invitation if we agreed he was a good candidate.”

“Perhaps his letter got lost in the mail or delayed,” Sarah pointed out, reasonable as always.

She supposed what Sarah had said was possible, Milly had to admit. Stagecoaches carrying the mail got robbed, or his letter could have fallen out of the mail sack and blown away, or gotten stuck to another going elsewhere…. But the man should have waited for a reply from them.

“I say an applicant is an applicant,” Maude Harkey said. “He must have come a long way. Least we can do is see him and hear what he has to say.”

Milly couldn’t argue with that, she decided. They had prayed fervently that their advertisement would be answered, and it had been, though not in the way she had planned.

Now that the moment had come, though, she felt a little faint. Her corset suddenly felt too tightly laced. It was hard to get a breath. She rose, wishing she had worn her Sunday best instead of this green-and-yellow-sprigged everyday dress, wished that she had time to pinch her cheeks…. Darting a glance at the others, she saw that all of them appeared to be wishing much the same.

“Well, by all means, invite him in, Dan,” Milly said with a calmness she was far from feeling.

The boy looked over his shoulder at whoever stood beyond their sight and said, “You kin come in.”

He was tall, taller by a head than Milly, which must put him at six feet or so, she thought absently, and so darkly tanned that at first Milly thought he was a Mexican. But then he doffed his wide-brimmed hat, and she saw that his hair gleamed tawny-gold in the light shed by the high window just behind him. His eyes were the blue of a cloudless spring sky, his nose straight and patrician. He wore a black frock coat with a matching waistcoat over an immaculate white shirt. He looked to be in his early thirties.

He was easily the most compelling man Milly had ever set eyes on.

He bowed deeply from the waist, and when he straightened, he smiled as his gaze roved around the circle of thunderstruck ladies.

“Good afternoon, ladies. My name is Nicholas Brookfield. I am looking for Miss Millicent Matthews.” His eyes stopped at Sarah. “Are you Miss Matthews, by chance?”

“I—uh, that is, I’m S-Sarah Matthews, her s-sister…” Sarah stammered, going pale, then crimson. She gestured toward Milly. “That’s Millicent.”

The woman she pointed to was nothing like the image Nick had formed in his mind of Miss Millicent Matthews, being neither blonde nor short. She was tall and willowy, her figure hinting at strength rather than feminine frailty. Her hair gleamed like polished mahogany, so dark brown that it was nearly black, her eyes a changeable hazel under sweeping lashes, her lips temptingly curving rather than the pouting rosebud he had always thought the epitome of female loveliness.

In that instant, Nicholas Brookfield’s ideal image of beauty was transformed. Millicent Matthews was the most striking woman he had ever encountered. He couldn’t imagine why he had thought, even for a second, that she was blonde. Why on earth had this woman needed to place such an advertisement? Were the men of Texas blind as well as fools?

“Mr. Brookfield, I’m sorry, we weren’t expecting you. In the advertisement we placed, we indicated that an interested gentleman was to send a letter. Is it possible your letter got lost in the mail?”

Nick had wondered if the woman would confront him for not following directions, but she had given him a way to save face, if he wanted to use it. Nick wouldn’t take refuge in a lie, however, even a small one.

He gave her what he hoped was a dazzling smile. “I’m afraid I didn’t want to wait upon an answer to a letter, Miss Matthews, the post being so slow, you understand. I’m here in Texas to take up a post in Austin, but I happened upon your advertisement and found it so intriguing that I rode on to Simpson Creek, purely out of curiosity.”

“‘Purely out of curiosity?’” she echoed, narrowing her eyes. “Does that mean you’re not interested in marriage, sir? That you just came to see what sort of a desperate female would place such an advertisement?”

“Milly,” her sister murmured, her tone mildly reproachful. “We shouldn’t make Mr. Brookfield feel unwelcome. We haven’t even given him a chance.”

So Miss Matthews could be prickly. This rose had thorns. Then he heard his words as she must have heard them, and he realized how offensive his half-formed idea of meeting the lady and her associates merely as a lark before settling down to a dreary job was.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it to sound that I was merely looking to amuse myself at your expense, ladies. I…I truly was impressed with your initiative, and decided I wanted to meet you.”

His reply seemed to mollify her somewhat. “I see,” she said, studying him. Her eyes seemed to look deep into his soul. “You’re British, Mr. Brookfield?”

Nick nodded. “From Sussex, in southeastern England. But I’ve been in India the past decade.”

“I—I see,” she said again, seemingly uncertain what to do now.

Nick was increasingly aware of their audience hanging on to every word. “I—that is, I wonder if we might speak privately?” He couldn’t think properly with all of them staring at him, let alone produce the right words to keep her from dismissing him out of hand.

Suspicion flashed in those changeable brown-gold eyes. For a moment Millicent Matthews looked as if she might refuse.

Nick added the one word he could think of to change her mind, and infused it with all the appeal he could muster. “Please.”

She glanced at the others, but they were apparently all waiting for her to decide, for no one said a word or twitched a muscle.

“Very well,” she said at last. “We can step outside for a moment, I suppose. Sarah, will you take over the meeting? If you’ll follow me, Mr. Brookfield…” She led him down the hall past the sanctuary.

Pushing open the pecan wood door, he walked outside with her, around the side of the church past a small cemetery and into a grove of venerable live oak and pecan trees behind the church. Fragments of old pecan shells crunched under their feet.

It was pleasantly cool in this sun-dappled shade, though the heat of the afternoon shimmered just beyond the influence of the leafy boughs. Insects hummed. A mockingbird flashed gray, black and white as it flitted from one tree to another. A curved stone bench curled around half of the thick trunk of one of the trees, but Millicent Matthews didn’t sit down; instead, she turned to face him.

“Mr. Brookfield, before we say anything more, I feel compelled to point out that I’m merely the one who composed the advertisement. There are several other ladies to choose from, as you saw. I assure you, it’s quite all right if you find you prefer another of them…”

So she had a sense of fair play and generosity. Nick liked that about her. But somehow he knew her suggestion was something he didn’t even want to consider. It was incomprehensible how he could sense that already, but there it was.

“I know you will find this difficult to believe, since we’ve only just met, and we really don’t know each other at all,” he said. “I can well understand that it appears I’m making a snap judgment, and perhaps I am, but I would like the opportunity to get to know you better. I—I find you very attractive indeed, Miss Matthews, and that’s the simple truth—”

He broke off, somewhat nettled as he noticed she appeared to have suddenly stopped listening. “Miss Matthews…”

“Ssssh!” Millicent hissed, suddenly holding up her hand.

Then he realized she was listening to something beyond the trees, up the road. Then he heard it, too, the pounding of hooves coming closer and a voice calling “Miss Milly! Miss Milly!”

“That sounds like Bobby…what can be the matter?” She jumped up, her brow furrowed, and began running toward the front of the church. Nick followed.

Just as they reached the road, a lathered horse skidded to a sliding stop in front of them and a wild-eyed youth jumped off, keeping hold of the reins. The other ladies, doubtless hearing the commotion, poured outside, too.

“Miss Milly! Miss Sarah! You gotta come home quick! There was Injuns—Comanche, I think—they attacked, and I think Uncle Josh is dead!”

Chapter Three

“Indians? Josh is dead? We have to get back there!”

Nick saw the color leach from Millicent Matthews’s face until it was white as sun-bleached bones. He stepped quickly forward to catch her, but although she trembled, she stood firm. It was Sarah, her sister, who swayed and might have gone down if one of the other ladies had not moved in to hold her up.

“Sarah! Are you all right?” Milly asked, rushing forward to her sister, whom the other woman had gently assisted to the ground before starting to fan her face.

“Yes…I think so…everything went gray for a moment…” Sarah said. “I’m all right, really, Caroline. Help me up.”

Still pale but obviously embarrassed at her near-swoon, she scrambled to her feet.

“We’ve got to get home!” Milly cried, now that her sister was standing. Her gaze darted around until it settled on a wagon whose horses were tied at the hitching post next to his mount, then back to her sister. “Sarah, come on, let’s get you into the wagon—” She braced her sister with an arm around her waist.

Caroline said, “I’ll help you get her into the wagon and go home with you. Dan, you run down and tell Pa and the sheriff to round up the men and come out to the Matthews ranch. And bring the doctor, just in case…. Quick, now!” she added, when it seemed as if the lad would remain standing there, mouth agape.

Then Milly seemed to remember him. “Mr. Brookfield, I’m sorry…I have to go. I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to—that is, perhaps one of the other ladies…”

“Oh, but I’m coming with you,” he informed her, falling into step next to her as she and the other woman helped Sarah walk.

“Really, that’s awfully kind of you, but it’s not your trouble. There’s no telling what we’re going to find when we get there,” she told him, as if that was the end of the matter. Her eyes went back to her sister as the other woman clambered into the bed of the wagon and stretched an arm down to assist Sarah. “Careful, Sarah…”

“Which is exactly why I’m going,” Nick said. “There’s no way on earth a gentleman would allow you to ride alone into possible danger. There might be savages lying in wait.”

She looked skeptical of him and impatient to be off. “Thank you, but I’m afraid you don’t understand about our Comanche—”

He saw how she must see him, as a civilized foreigner with no real experience in fighting, and interrupted her with a gesture. “I have a brace of pistols in my saddlebags,” he said, jerking his head toward his horse. “And I know how to use them, as well as that shotgun you have mounted on the back of your wagon seat. Miss Matthews, I have served in Her Majesty’s army, and I have been tested in battle against hordes of murderous, screaming Indians—India Indians, that is—armed and out to kill me and every other Englishman they could. Let me come with you, at least until the men from town arrive.”

His words seemed to act like a dash of cold water. “A-all right,” she said, and without another word turned back to the wagon. She climbed with the graceful ease of long experience onto the seat and gathered up the reins. Before he could even mount his horse, she had backed up the wagon and snapped the reins over the horses’ backs.

Milly’s heart caught in her throat as the wagon round ed a curve and she spotted the smoke rising in an ominous gray plume over the low mesquite- and cactus-studded hill that lay between there and home. Unconsciously she pulled up on the reins and the wagon creaked to a halt in the dusty road.

“Oh, Milly, what if it’s true? What if Josh is dead? Whatever will we do?” Sarah moaned from the wagon bed behind her.

Please, God, don’t let it be true, Milly prayed. Don’t let Josh be dead. Nothing else really matters, even if they burned the house. She saw out of the corner of her eye that the Englishman had reined in his mount next to them, as had Bobby.

Braced against the side of the wagon bed, Caroline Wallace gave Sarah a one-armed hug, but she looked every bit as worried.

“We’ll deal with whatever we find,” she said grimly, fighting the urge to wheel the horses around and whip them into a gallop. What would they do, with only a boy not old enough to shave to help them run the ranch? “And the sooner we find out what that is, the better. Here, Mr. Brookfield,” she said, reaching around the slatted seat for the shotgun. “Perhaps you’d better have this at the ready.”

His eyes were full of encouraging sympathy as he leaned over to accept the firearm from her. “Steady on, Miss Matthews,” he murmured. “I’ll be with you.”

It was ridiculous to take heart from the words of a stranger, a dandified-looking Englishman who claimed to have been a soldier, but there was something very capable in his manner and comforting in his words.

“I’ll go ahead, shall I, and scout out the situation?” he suggested. “See if it’s safe for you ladies to come ahead?”

“And leave us here to be picked off? No, thank you,” she responded tartly, gesturing toward the rocky, brush-studded hills. She could picture a Comanche brave hiding behind every boulder and bush. “We’ll go together.” She clucked to the horses and the buckboard lurched forward.

She couldn’t stifle a groan of pure anguish when she rounded the curve and spotted the smoldering ruin that was the barn. Just then the wind shifted and blew toward the wagon, temporarily blinding her with smoke and stinging her eyes. Had the house been burned to ashes like the barn? Where was Josh? Or rather, Josh’s body, she corrected herself, knuckling tears away from her cheeks.

Then the wind shifted capriciously again and she saw what she hadn’t dared hope for—the house was still standing. So was the bunkhouse, which stood across from it and next to the barn. Why hadn’t they been burned, too? But the pasture beyond, in which some fifty head of cattle and a dozen horses had been grazing when they’d left for the meeting, was empty. There was no sign of the Comanche raiders except for a hawk’s feather that must have fallen from one of the braves’ hair, sticking incongruously in a rosebush by the house.

“They left Josh on t’other side a’ the barn,” Bobby whispered, as if fearing that speaking aloud would bring the Comanches back.

She couldn’t worry about the loss of the cattle right now or how they would survive. She had to see Josh.

“Caroline, stay with Sarah, please,” she said to the woman, who still crouched protectively in the bed of the buckboard by her sister.

“I say, Miss Matthews,” Nicholas Brookfield said be side her, “please allow me to go first. There’s no need to subject yourself to this if there’s nothing to be done for the chap.”

It was so tempting to accept his offer, to spare herself the sight of the old man perhaps scalped or otherwise mutilated, lying in his blood. But old Josh had been their rock ever since their father had died, and she owed him this much at least.

“No,” she said, letting her eyes speak her gratitude for his offer. “But please, come with me.”

Still holding the shotgun at the ready, he led the way around the barn.

At first, she thought the old man was dead, sprawled there in the dirt between the side of the barn and the empty corral. He was pallid as a corpse, his shirt saturated with dark dried blood. A deep gash bisected his upper forehead, dyeing his gray hair a dark crimson. A feathered shaft was embedded in each shoulder, pinning his torso to the ground, and his left pants leg was slashed midthigh. She caught a glimpse of a long, deep laceration beneath. Not far away, a corner of the barn still burned with crackling intensity. It was a miracle flying sparks hadn’t set Josh’s clothes alight.

And then she saw that Josh’s chest was rising and falling.

“Josh?” she called, softly at first, afraid to trust her eyes, then louder, “Josh?”

His answer was a groan.

She rushed past Brookfield, falling to her knees beside the fallen cowboy. “Josh, it’s me, Milly. Can you hear me?” Gingerly, she touched his face, not wanting to cause him any extra pain.

Josh’s eyelids fluttered and then he opened one eye, blinking as he attempted to focus his gaze. “Miss Milly…sorry…I caught them redskins stealin’ cattle…tried to drive ’em off with the rifle…” He squinted at the ground on his right side and sighed. “Looks like they got that, too. St-started…they started t’ take my scalp…dunno what stopped ’em from finishin’…”

“Thank God,” Milly murmured. But Josh couldn’t hear her. He’d passed out again.

“Bobby, go get me some water from the well,” Milly called over her shoulder. “And tell Sarah and Caroline to bring soap and a couple of clean sheets to make up the bed in the spare room for Josh.”

“And Bobby, bring me a couple of knives,” Brookfield called out, pulling off his black frock coat and throwing it over a fencepost in the nearby corral. He rolled up his sleeves past his elbows, revealing tanned, muscular arms. “And some whiskey if you can find it. Or any kind of liquor.”

Milly turned startled eyes to him and saw that he knelt in the dirt beside her, oblivious of his immaculate white shirt and black trousers. “Mr. Brookfield, what are you going to do?”

With his bare hands, he was digging into the dirt beside Josh’s wounded shoulder. “Before he comes around, I’m going to cut off the arrowheads. There’s no way we can pull the arrow shafts out otherwise without injuring him further.”

“Are you a doctor, Mr. Brookfield?”

He shook his head without looking at her, still digging in the dirt.

“Shouldn’t we wait ’til the doctor gets here to do that?”

He shook his head again. “You can’t even move the man to a bed until we pull out those arrows. I’ve seen the regimental doctor remove a spear from an unlucky sepoy before, if that makes you feel better.”

He didn’t explain what a sepoy was, or if the sepoy had lived through the procedure, but she didn’t have any better idea. And Dan Wallace might not find the doctor right away. They didn’t dare wait.

“I suppose you’re right—you’d better go ahead. But even if Josh comes around, we don’t have any whiskey or any other kind of spirits. Papa didn’t hold with drinking.”

“It’d be to pour on the wounds mostly, though if he regains his senses I’ll be giving him some to drink,” the Englishman answered, with that purposeful calm he’d exhibited ever since they’d received the awful news.

Just then Bobby dashed back, a pair of knives from the kitchen clutched in one hand, a half-full bottle of whiskey in the other.

Milly’s jaw dropped. “Bobby, where on earth did you get that?”

Bobby scuffed the toe of his boot in the dust and refused to meet her eyes. “Mr. Josh, he had some in the bunkhouse. He didn’t drink it very often,” he added in a defensive tone, “an’ never ’til the day’s work was done. He never would let me have any, neither. Said I wasn’t a man growed yet. He said I wasn’t to tell you, but I reckon I needed t’ break that promise.”

“That’s fine, Bobby,” Nicholas Brookfield said, taking the bottle from him. “Now go hold one of the knife blades in the fire for a minute.”

After the boy did as he was bid and returned with the knife, its tip still glowing red.

“Now you hold the hot knife, Miss Matthews—don’t let it touch anything, while you, Bobby, hold Mr. Josh by the shoulder, just so…”

Obediently, she held the knife, watching as Bobby braced one of Josh’s shoulders, holding it just far enough above the ground so that the arrow shaft was visible, while Brookfield sawed at the arrow shaft until he had cut it in two, then shifted the wounded man slightly so that he was no longer lying over the arrowhead and the tip of the shaft that was still embedded in the ground. Although Josh groaned, he did not wake up.

Brookfield and Bobby switched sides.

Caroline came from the house then, lugging a bucket of water that splashed droplets out the side with each step she took. “I thought it best to set Sarah to making up the bed in your spare room…” She stopped stock-still when she caught sight of Josh. “Heaven have mercy, he’s in a bad way, isn’t he? I was afraid she’d faint if she saw him like this.”

Milly nodded, knowing Caroline was right. She’d felt dizzy herself, just looking at all that blood, but knew fainting was a luxury she didn’t have. Josh needed her to be steady right now and help Nicholas Brookfield.

The Englishman had cut the other shaft away while she spoke to Caroline and was pouring the whiskey liberally over the wounds and his hands now. “I should have told you, but I’m going to need some bandages here as well. These wounds are liable to bleed when I pull the arrow shafts out.”

Milly raced into the house, but Sarah had made the bed and had only just begun to rip the other sheet into strips for bandages.

“Milly, how is he? Is he going to make it?” Sarah’s face was still pale, her eyes frightened.

“I don’t know, Sarah. Hurry up with the bandages, will you? We’re going to need a lot of them,” Milly said, and dashed back to where Brookfield and Caroline waited for her. “She doesn’t have them ready yet.”

The Englishman frowned. “I have a handkerchief,” he said, pulling a folded square of spotless linen from his breast pocket. “But we’ll need something for the other side.”

She knew she could send Caroline back to the house and hope that Sarah had some strips of cloth ready by now, but Caroline had sat down, facing away from the wounded man, and was looking a bit green herself. Brookfield looked at her expectantly.

“Wait just a moment,” she said, and turning around so that her back was to Brookfield, reached up under her skirts and began ripping the flounces off her petticoat. She wondered what he must be thinking. Surely the well-brought-up young ladies of England would never have done such a thing, but then, they didn’t face Comanche attacks, did they?

His cool eyes held an element of admiration when she turned around again and showed him the wadded-up flounce.

“Good thinking, Miss Matthews. Do you think you could kneel by Josh’s head and stand ready to apply the bandage quickly, as soon as I pull the first shaft out? I’ll move quickly on to the other one, then. Bobby, you hold his feet. He’ll probably feel this to some extent, and he’s apt to struggle.”

Bobby nodded solemnly, so what could Milly do but agree?

Chapter Four

What a woman, Nick marveled, after they’d carried the still-unconscious old man into the spare bedroom and settled him on the fresh sheets. Not only had Milly Matthews not succumbed to a fit of the vapors while she watched him pull out the arrow shafts and the blood welled up onto the skin, but she quickly halted her sister from doing so as well. None of the English ladies of his acquaintance would have done as well as she did. His admiration for her grew apace, right along with his desire to get to know her better.

Now, of course, was not the appropriate time to ex press such sentiments. “We’ll have to keep an eye on those bandages over the wounds, in case he continues to bleed,” he told Milly. “And watch for fever.” He knew he did not have to tell her that neither would be a good sign—though fever was almost inevitable. Right now, at least, only a very small amount of dried blood showed through on the white cotton.

“We’ll set up watches,” she said in her decisive manner. “I’ll take—”

They all tensed when the sounds of pounding hooves reached them through the open window. Nick grabbed for the shotgun, which he’d gone back outside for as soon as they’d laid the old foreman down on the bed.

“Oh, my heavens, are they back to kill us, too?” Sarah cried, shrinking into the corner.

But Milly strode over to the window and flicked aside the homemade muslin curtains. “It’s the posse from town. Maybe they’ll be in time to catch those thieving Comanches and get our cattle back.” From the slumped set of her shoulders, though, it didn’t look as if she believed it.

A minute later, the men clomped inside, spurs clanking against the plank floor, bringing with them the smells of horses and leather and sweat. Milly went into the kitchen to meet them, and he heard her telling them about Josh’s injuries and how “the Englishman” had pulled the arrows out of the foreman.

All nine of them were soon tramping back into the spare bedroom to see Josh for themselves—and to satisfy their curiosity about the foreign stranger, Nick assumed.

Milly introduced each one to him. They were an assorted lot, some were tall, some short, some had weathered faces and the lean, wiry-legged build of men who spent much time in the saddle. Others were paler and slighter, like shopkeepers. A couple seemed about the same age as Nick; three were younger, boys really, and the rest had graying or thinning hair. All of them nodded cordially to Nick, and all appeared dressed to ride except for the oldest, whom he had seen climbing out of a two-wheeled covered buggy.

“And last but not least is Doctor Harkey,” said Milly, indicating the older man now bending over Josh and peering under the bandages. Doctor Harkey straightened as his name was called, and reached out a hand to Nick.

“You did well, it appears,” he told Nick. “Doubt I could’ve done better myself, though of course only time will tell if old Josh will survive his injuries,” he added, looking back at the unconscious man. “Are you a doctor?”

“Nothing like that, sir, but I’m thankful to hear you don’t think I made things worse,” Nick said.

“He was a soldier in India,” Milly informed the doctor.

“I hate t’ interrupt, but are we gonna stand around jawin’ or are we gonna ride after them Comanches?” asked a beefy, florid-faced middle-aged man. “While we’re talkin’, those murderin’ redskins ’re gallopin’ away with them cattle.” He punctuated his words with a wide sweeping gesture toward the outside.

All the men of the posse straightened and started heading for the door.

Nick stood. “I’d like to go along, if you gentlemen don’t mind. I can use their shotgun, and I have my pistols. That is, if you feel you’ll be all right here, Miss Matthews.”

Milly nodded, obviously surprised by his announcement.

Doctor Harkey stood up. “I’m staying here at least until the posse returns. Josh needs me more than they do.”

The men of the posse looked dubiously at Nick. The beefy man found his voice first. “That’s right kindly of you, stranger, but y’ ain’t exactly dressed fer it,” he said, eyeing Nick’s blood-stained black frock coat and trousers. “And we didn’t bring no extra horse.”

“That’s my bay standing out there next to the wagon, still saddled. And this suit is probably already ruined, so it makes no difference.”

“We can get him some of Josh’s clothes—they’re about the same size,” Milly said. “Bobby, run and fetch them.”

The youth, who had been standing by the door, did as he was told, gangly arms flying, boot heels thudding on the floor.

“And he could use Papa’s rifle,” Sarah said, springing up from her seat. “I’ll go get it.” She excused herself as she pushed past the men.

The beefy-faced man turned back to Nick. “We’ll wait five minutes, no longer, Brookfield. And I’ll warn you, we’ll be ridin’ hard and waitin’ for no one. This ain’t gonna be no canter in th’ park. You fall behind, you’re on your own.”

“You needn’t concern yourself—I can keep up,” Nick informed him coolly, holding his gaze until the other man looked away first.

Five minutes later, dressed in the old foreman’s denims, work shirt, boots and floppy-brimmed hat, he was galloping across the field with the rest.

“He’s quite remarkable, your Mr. Brookfield,” Sarah said, as they looked through the window in the spare bedroom as the riders became swallowed in the dust in the distance. She had relaxed now that the doctor arrived and old Josh was sleeping peacefully. “Why, he just took charge, didn’t he? I never would have imagined someone dressed like a greenhorn could act so capable.”

“And that English accent,” Caroline put in with a dreamy sigh. “I reckon I could listen to him talk for hours…”

“He’s not my Mr. Brookfield,” Milly corrected her sister. She did not want to admit to anyone, just yet, how impressed she had been with the way Nicholas Brookfield had jumped right into the midst of their troubles. She would not have expected any man who’d come to town with the simple purpose of meeting a gaggle of unmarried ladies to do as he had done, doctoring a gravely wounded man, and riding with men he had never met in pursuit of the savages. And she supposed if she had nothing else to think about, the Englishman’s accent did fall very pleasantly on ears used to Texas drawls. But right now she had to wonder how they were going to survive, so she couldn’t think about such frivolous things.

“Caroline, I can take you back to town in the buckboard, if you want,” she said, changing the subject. “The horses are still hitched up.”

“No, thank you, not with a bunch of wild Indians in the area,” the postmaster’s daughter said. “Besides, I’ll just wait ’til Papa comes back with the posse and ride back with him. Meanwhile, I’ll make myself useful around here. Sarah, why don’t we go see what we can whip up for supper? Doc Harkey, you probably missed your dinner, didn’t you?”

The old physician looked up from Josh’s bedside. “I did, because Maude was at that meeting with y’all. She said she’d fix it as soon as she got home…but of course no one could’ve foreseen what happened. Anything will be fine for me, girls. I’m not picky. Josh’ll need some broth tomorrow, but I imagine he won’t be taking any nourishment tonight.”

“While you two are doing that,” Milly said, “I’ll unhitch the buckboard, then see if I can wash the blood out of Mr. Brookfield’s clothes. I’m sure glad he could wear Josh’s clothes. He must not know how the mesquite thorns and cactus would rip that fine cloth to shreds.”

“Take a pistol outside with you,” Sarah admonished, “just in case.”

Milly was sure she had just nodded off beside the old cowboy’s bedside when she was awakened by the sound of a cow bawling from the corral.

I must still be dreaming, because the Indians took all the cattle and most of the horses yesterday.

Then the door creaked open. The gray light of dawn—it had been midnight when she had sent the doctor to sleep in their father’s bed—illuminated the dusty, rumpled figure of Nicholas Brookfield, while from the kitchen wafted the sound of her sister’s voice mingling with the low voices of the other men and the smell of coffee.

“Did you…did you catch them?” she finally asked, though his weary eyes had already telegraphed the answer.

“No. We followed them until their tracks split up, each pair of horses following some of the cattle. We would’ve turned back sooner if the moon hadn’t been full, but it was too dark to track. By that time we were considerably far from here, so we’re just now getting back. But the good news is that either they missed some of the cattle and horses, or some managed to break away, because we found several along the way. So we rounded up a score or so of cattle and half a dozen horses.”

Milly straightened, fully awake now. “That is good news. Better than I’d dared hope for.” At least they wouldn’t starve, although she’d hoped to sell the full herd to a cattle drover next spring. Now they might have to sell some of the horses to buy more stock. In time, more calves would be born, and the herd would grow again—if the Comanche left their ranch alone. But raiding Indians were a fact of life in this part of Texas, and probably would be for a long time to come. Until the Federal army managed to contain them in reservations or kill them, one took his chances with the Indians or moved elsewhere.

“How is he?” he asked, nodding toward the supine figure on the bed.

“He had a restless night,” Milly answered, her gaze following his. “The doctor gave him some laudanum before I took over, and got some willow bark tea in him while he was lucid, for the fever, but he’s been sleeping since then. He hasn’t had any more bleeding.”

“Thank God for that,” he said, rubbing a beard-shadowed cheek.

“Yes. And you’ve done more than I could’ve possibly asked for, Mr. Brookfield,” she said, giving him a grateful smile. “I smell breakfast cooking out there. Why don’t you join the other men and eat, and then I’ll hitch up the wagon and take you back to town. Or you could take a nap in the bunkhouse first, if you’d like. You must be exhausted.”

“I’m not leaving, Miss Matthews,” he informed her. “You’re going to need some help around here, while your foreman convalesces.”

“But…but you’re not a cowboy,” Milly said. “You said you had a position waiting for you in Austin. I couldn’t possibly ask you to—”

“You haven’t asked. I’ve offered. And I couldn’t possibly leave two women to cope alone out here, with nothing more than a lad to help you,” he said reasonably. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“But I could probably get someone from around here to help, until Josh is back on his feet,” she said, not wanting to think about the possibility that Josh might not be able to resume his responsibilities. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, and wouldn’t be for a few days, Doc Harkey had said. He could still die if infection set in. “You know nothing of handling cattle and all the rest of the things a cowboy does.”

“I can learn,” he insisted stubbornly. “Bobby can teach me, and in time, Josh can, too. As for the men around here, it sounds as if they all have their own ranches to tend. Most of them thought you should sell out and move into town,” he said. “Mr. Waters said something about making you an offer,” he said.

Milly blinked. It didn’t surprise her that Bill Waters saw this attack as a good time to persuade her to sell her property to him. He’d always wanted the Matthews property, because it abutted his land but had better access to Simpson Creek.

“Now, if you want to do that, I’d certainly understand,” Nicholas went on. “But I got the idea you wanted to stay here. And in that case, you’ll need me.”

She stared at him while he waited calmly, watching her. Should she take him up on his offer? Could she trust him, or would he disappear as soon as he realized what a hard life he was signing up for, even temporarily? Was he just trying to impress her with his generosity, in an effort to woo her, to get her to let her guard down? Might he try to take liberties with her once she was depending on him?

“If you would feel more secure about allowing me to stay on and help you,” he began, “you may dismiss what I said in the churchyard before all this happened, about getting to know you better. I know you have a lot on your mind right now besides courting, and if you only want me to serve as a cowhand, I believe you call it, and a guard to protect you and your sister, I’ll understand.”

“I…I don’t know what to say,” Milly managed at last. “What you’re offering is…more than generous.”

“Girl, I think you better take him up on it,” a voice rasped from the bed beside them, and they both started.

“Josh, you’re awake!” she cried. How long had he been listening? “How do you feel?”

“Like I been stomped on by a herd a’ cattle with hooves sharp as knives,” Josh said, smiling weakly. “With a little luck I reckon I’ll make it, though. But it’s gonna be a while afore I’m fit t’manage this here ranch an’ keep young Bobby from daydreamin’ the day away. This here Englishman’s willin’ to help you out, so I reckon you should accept an’ say thank you to the good Lord fer sendin’ him.”

Chapter Five

Before Josh had begun speaking, Nick had watched the conflicting emotions parading across Milly’s face—doubt, trust, fear, hope. Now, at the old cowboy’s urging, the battle was over and trust had won—trust in old Josh’s opinion, if not in Nick himself, as yet.

“Josh has never steered us wrong,” she said, smiling down at the old cowboy and then back at Nick. “So I will take you up on your very kind offer, Nicholas Brookfield, at least until Josh is back on his feet.”

He gave both of them a brilliant smile, then bowed. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m honored. I shall endeavor to be worthy of the trust you’ve placed in me.”

Milly looked touched, but Josh gave a chuckle that had him instantly wincing at the movement to his ribs. “Boy, that was a might pretty speech for what you just signed up for—a lot a’ hard work in the dust and heat.”

“I’ll be very dependent on your advice, sir.”

“I—I can’t pay you anything for the time being,” Milly said apologetically. “Just your room and board.”

“My needs are simple,” Nick said. “Room and board will be plenty.” He was only a third son of a nobleman, but he still wasn’t exactly a pauper, so he had little need of whatever sum most cowboys were paid a month beyond their keep. He would have to write to the bank in Austin that was handling his affairs and notify them that his address would be in Simpson Creek, for now.

“I suppose you could have my father’s bedroom when the doctor leaves…” Milly mused aloud.

“That won’t be necessary,” he replied quickly. “The bunkhouse will be fine for me.”

Her forehead furrowed. “But…surely you’ve never slept in such humble circumstances,” she protested. “I mean…in a bunk bed? I imagine you’re used to much better, being from England and all.”

He thought for a moment of his huge bedchamber back home in East Sussex at Greyshaw Hall, with its canopied bed and monogrammed linen sheets, and his comfortable quarters in Bombay and his native servant who had seen to his every need. Yes, he had been “used to much better,” but he had also experienced much worse.

“Miss Matthews, I told you I was a soldier until recently, and while on campaign I have slept on a camp cot and even on the ground. I assure you I will be fine in the bunkhouse. Besides, I cannot properly be a cowboy unless I sleep there, can I?” he asked lightly, knowing it had been innocence that had led her to offer him her father’s old room.

“But—”

“Miss Milly, you can’t be havin’ him sleepin’ in the same house with you two girls,” Josh pointed out, with a meaningful nod toward the kitchen, from where the sounds of conversation and the clinking of silverware against plates still floated back to them. “Once the gossips in town got wind a’ that, they’d chew your reputation to shreds.”

Nick could see that in her effort to be properly hospitable, Milly hadn’t thought of how it would look for him to stay in the house.

“He’d best sleep out in th’ bunkhouse, where the greatest danger’ll be my snorin’, once I get back on my feet,” Josh said with a wink.

“It’s decided, then,” Nick said. All at once his long night in the saddle caught up with him and before he could catch himself, he yawned.

“Good heavens, I’d forgotten how exhausted you must be, Mr. Brookfield!” Milly exclaimed. “You’ve been up all night! Go on out to the kitchen and get yourself some breakfast, like I said, while I take some sheets out to the bunkhouse and make up a bed for you,” she said, making shooing motions.

He remained where he was for a moment. “I suppose if I’m going to work for you, Miss Milly, you had better start calling me Nick,” he said, holding her gaze.

He was delighted to see he could make Milly Matthews blush—and such a charming blush it was, too, spreading upward from her lovely, slender neck to her cheeks and turning them scarlet while her eyes took on a certain sparkle. Immediately she looked away, as if she could pretend by sheer force of will that it hadn’t happened.

He saw Josh watching this little scene, too, but there was no censure in the old cowboy’s gaze, only amusement.

“You’d best hurry on out to the kitchen like Miss Milly said, Nick. The way those galoots out there eat, they’re liable not to leave you a crumb.”

Snatching up clean, folded sheets from a cedarwood chest in the hallway, Milly followed Nick. Caroline Wallace was in the kitchen, pouring coffee. She and the handful of men standing around forking scrambled eggs from their plates nodded at her or mumbled “Good morning.”

Threading her way through them, she found Sarah at the cookstove, talking to Doc Harkey.

“How’s Josh?” Sarah had taken the evening watch, but she was no night owl, and had gone to bed when Milly relieved her. But Milly was never at her best in the morning or at cooking, so she was grateful Sarah was up with the sun and feeding the hungry men.

“Awake. I can tell he’s going to make it, ’cause he’s already ornery,” Milly said with a laugh.

“I’ll go in and have a look at him,” Doc Harkey said, and waded through the throng of men toward the back hall.

Sarah looked questioningly at the armload of sheets Milly carried.

“Mr. Brookfield has very kindly offered to stay on and help us while Josh is laid up,” she said, keeping her tone low so only Sarah could hear, and nodding toward Nick. He was talking to one of the other men while spooning clumps of scrambled eggs onto his plate to join a rasher of bacon and a thick slice of bread. “I’m just going to make up a bed in the bunkhouse for him.”

“I see.” Sarah’s knowing eyes spoke volumes and she grinned. “Well, isn’t that nice of him? You have your very own knight in shining armor.”

“Yes, we do,” Milly corrected her in a quelling tone. “It is very kind of him, though he’s never done ranch chores before. But he seems to think Josh can advise him and Bobby can show him what he needs to do.”

“He seems like the kind of man who can do anything he sets his mind to,” Sarah commented. “All right, you go make up the bed, but once these fellows go home, you go on to bed.”

“Oh, I slept a little in the chair,” Milly protested. “I’ll be all right.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t enough.”

“Thanks for handling breakfast,” Milly said. “How did you ever manage?”

“The eggs were from yesterday morning, the bacon from the smokehouse. I’m sure I don’t know what we’re going to do after that. I found a few hens roosting in the trees, and that noisy rooster, but I’m sure the barn fire killed the rest of them.”

“We’ll make it with God’s help, and one day at a time,” Milly said, determined not to give way to anxiety. Only yesterday morning Sarah had been gathering eggs, while she had been planning a meeting to marry off the women in Simpson Creek. Now she had bigger problems to worry about.

“You’re right, Milly,” Sarah said, squaring her shoulders. “I guess we won’t be eating chicken for a while until the flock builds up again.”

“Or beef,” Milly said.

“We’ll have to send Bobby to look in the brush. Maybe some of the pigs made it.”

Weariness nagged at Milly’s heels by the time she finished making up the bed in the bunkhouse and trudged back across the yard. The men who’d ridden in the posse were in the process of departing, some saddling their horses, some already mounted up and waiting for the others. Caroline was riding double with her father.

At Milly’s approach, Bill Waters handed his reins to Amos Wallace and headed out to intercept her.

“Mr. Waters, I want to thank you for taking charge of the men and doing your best to find our cattle,” she said, extending a hand.

“You’re welcome, little lady,” he said in his usual bluff, hearty manner. “I’d do anything for Dick Matthews’s daughters, and that’s a fact. Wish we could’ve caught them thievin’ redskins and gotten all of the cattle and horses back, instead of just some.” He shrugged. “It’s a shame this has happened, it surely is,” he said, gesturing at the charred remains of the barn, from which a wisp or two of smoke still rose. “Now, I think you ought to reconsider my offer to buy you out. You could find rooms in town, take jobs…or move on to some big city somewhere. Don’t you see it’s the only sensible thing to do now that this has happened?”

“Thanks, Mr. Waters. We’ll think about it,” she said, as she had so many times before, ever since Pa had died. She saw by his exasperated expression that he knew she was only being polite.

“You need to do more than just think about it. Your pa would want me to make you see reason, I know he would!”

He was getting more red in the face as he talked. A vein jumped in his forehead. Milly fought the urge to pluck the hanky he had sticking out of his pocket and wipe his brow.

“The good Lord knows I’d hoped somethin’ might grow between my boy Wes and you or Sarah, once the war was over. But it didn’t work out that way.”

Wesley Waters was one of the Simpson Creek boys who had not returned. Milly, Sarah and Wes had been friendly, but never anything more. But Milly believed his father hadn’t wanted a romance between Wes and either of the Matthews girls nearly as much as he’d wanted a means of joining the Matthews land to his.

“Just tell me, how are you two going to cope out here, with Josh laid up and only that no-account boy t’help you?” He made a wide arc with his arm, including the whole ranch.

“We’ll be all right, Mr. Waters. Mr. Brookfield has very kindly offered to stay on and help us while Josh is laid up.”

He blinked at her. “That foreigner? What does he know about ranchin’? Beggin’ yer pardon, Miss Milly, but have you been spendin’ too much time in the sun without your bonnet? And that scheme of yours of invitin’ men here t’marry is just plumb foolishness. Your pa would want me to tell you that, too!”

Temper flaring, Milly went rigid. “Mr. Waters, the way you’re talking, I’m not sure you ever really knew my father after all. My pa always encouraged me to pray about a problem, then use my brain to solve it.”

“And this is the solution your brain cooked up?” he said, pointing an accusing finger at Nick, who had just come out onto the porch. “Bringing an outsider—a foreigner—to Simpson Creek?”

Nick crossed the yard in a few quick strides. From where he had been, Milly knew he could not have heard Bill Waters’s words, but he’d seen the finger pointed at him, for he asked quietly, “Is there a problem, Miss Matthews?”

She could have kissed him for coming to her side just then. “No, Mr. Waters was just fretting about his need to leave and go take care of his own ranch. But I assured him we’d be fine, with you to help us.”

She saw Waters try to stare Nick down, but Nick returned his gaze calmly. “I’m sure Miss Matthews appreciates your concern,” he said. “And I assure you I’ll do everything in my power to ensure her safety and that of her sister.” He offered his hand, which Waters pretended not to see.

“I’ll count on that, Brookfield,” he growled. “Good day, Miss Milly,” he called over his shoulder as he stalked off to his waiting horse.

Bill Waters is nothing but a patronizing hypocrite, trying to hide his greed under a cloak of concern! thought Milly.

“What did he say to you? You’re shaking,” Nick observed, still keeping his voice low as Waters led the way out of the yard.

Milly was still stinging at Waters’s condescending words, but she didn’t want to repeat what the old rancher had said about Nick. Just then, she was saved from the necessity of talking about it by the arrival of the circuit preacher’s buggy rolling into the barnyard.

“Reverend Chadwick, how nice of you to visit,” she called, reaching the buggy just as the silver-haired preacher set the brake and stepped out of his buggy.

“Miss Milly, I was in Richland Springs. I was so upset to arrive back in town this morning and hear what had happened to you,” he said, embracing her, then staring with dismay at the blackened ruin of the barn. “I came straight here. I didn’t stop any longer than it took to water the horses,” he said.

“Reverend Chadwick, a circuit rider can’t be everywhere at once. We certainly understand that,” Milly protested.

“And how is Josh?”

She told the preacher about their foreman’s injuries. “I’m sure he’d be pleased to see you,” she said. “Come inside. But before you do, Reverend, I’d like you to meet Mr. Nicholas Brookfield, who’ll be helping us out here while Josh recovers.”

Chapter Six

After introductions were made, Milly mercifully excused Nick and sent him to get some sleep. He’d thought at first he’d never be able to fall into slumber on the thin ticking-covered straw mattress in the middle of the hot Texas day.

The next thing he knew, though, the creaking of the door opening woke him as Bobby clumped into the room and started rummaging in the crate at the foot of his bed.

“Oh, sorry, didn’t mean t’wake you, sir,” the youth apologized, straightening.

“No need to apologize,” he told the youth. “I never meant to sleep so long. And you’d probably better start calling me Nick, too,” he told the boy.

Bobby looked gratified but still a little uneasy. “How ’bout Mr. Nick? Uncle Josh says t’ be respectful to my elders.”

“Fair enough.” The angle of the shadows on the wall told Nick hours had passed even before he reached for the pocket watch he had left on the upended crate that served as bedside table and saw that it was four o’clock.

He’d slept the day away! Milly, her sister and Bobby had no doubt taken on tasks he should have been doing.

“What needs to be done?”

Bobby traced a half circle with the toe of one dusty boot, apparently also uncomfortable with the idea of giving an adult orders.

“I—I dunno, s—Mr. Nick. Mebbe you best ask Miss Milly.”

“All right, I’ll do that.”

He found Milly in the kitchen, shelling black-eyed peas into a bowl in her lap. Sarah, her back to the door, was kneading dough. The delicious odor of roasting ham wafted from the cookstove.

“Oh, hello, Nick,” Milly said. “Did you have a good sleep?”

“Too good,” Nick said. “I want to apologize for lying abed so long when there’s so much to be done.”

“Horsefeathers,” Milly Matthews responded with a smile. “You must have needed it.”

Her lack of censure only made him feel guiltier, somehow. “Did you get some rest, ma’am?”

She shook her head. “I’ll sleep tonight.”

“As I should have waited to do. I only meant to lie down for an hour. This won’t happen again, Miss Milly, Miss Sarah.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Nick,” Sarah admonished, looking over her shoulder.

“Thank you, but I intend to be more of a help from now on. What should I be doing now?”

Milly’s hands paused, clutching a handful of unshelled pods. “It’s a couple of hours ’til supper—not enough time to get started on any rebuilding projects…. It might be a good idea if you and Bobby were to saddle up and go for a ride around the ranch so you can get an idea of how far the property extends and make a survey of what needs to be done. Oh, and you’ll be passing the creek that runs just inside the northern edge. You and Bobby could take a quick dip and get cleaned up,” Milly added, eyeing his cheeks and chin.

“A dip sounds good.” Nick ran his fingers over the stubbly growth, imagining how scruffy he looked. He was glad he’d kept his razor in his saddlebag. He didn’t want to look unkempt around this lovely woman he was trying to impress.

“Take your pistol with you,” Milly called as he headed for the door. “You never know what you might meet out there in the brush.”

“Do you mean Indians?”

She nodded. “Or rattlesnakes. They like to sun themselves on the rocky ledges that line one side of the creek. There’s a little cave in those ledges. Sarah and I used to play there and pretend it was our cottage until we saw a snake at its entrance.”

“Then I’ll be sure and take my dip on the other side.” He’d had enough encounters with cobras in India to have a healthy respect for poisonous snakes of any kind.

“Don’t let Bobby dillydally in the creek,” she admonished. “Supper’s at six and Reverend Chadwick brought a big ham with him on behalf of the congregation.”

“If Bobby wants to stay in the creek, I shall eat his share of the meat,” he said with a wink.

Nick was as good as his word, riding into the yard with Bobby at quarter ’til the hour. By the time they’d unsaddled and turned the horses out in the corral, the grandfather clock in the parlor was chiming six times.

“Here we are, ma’am, right on schedule,” Nick said, pronouncing it in the British way—“shedule” instead of “schedule.” She watched him, noting the way his still-damp hair clung to his neck while he sniffed with obvious appreciation of the savory-smelling, covered iron pot she carried to the table with the aid of a thick dish towel.

“Your promptness is appreciated,” she said lightly, although what she was really appreciating was the strong, freshly shaved curve of his jaw. Nick Brookfield was compelling even when tired and rumpled; when rested and freshly bathed, he was a very handsome man, indeed. She wrenched her eyes away, lest he catch her staring. “You can sit over there, across from Bobby,” she said, pointing to a chair on the far side of the rectangular, rough-hewn table that had been laid with a checkered gingham cloth.

“How about Josh? Would you like me to take him his supper and help him eat first?”

“Oh, he’s already eaten,” Sarah said. “He’s not up to anything but a little soup yet, but he took that well at least. Maybe tomorrow he can eat a little more and even join us at the table.”

Milly was moved that Nick had thought of the injured old cowboy’s needs before his own. She watched now as he seated himself gracefully, then waited.

“Nick, since this is your first meal with us, would you like to say the blessing?” You could tell a lot about a man by the way he reacted to such a request, Pa always said.

Nick hesitated, but only for a moment. “I’d be honored,” he said, and bowed his head. “Lord, we’d like to thank You for this bountiful meal and the good people from the church who provided it, and the hands that prepared it. And we thank You for saving the house, and Josh, and please protect the ranch and those who live here from the Indians. Amen.”

“Thank you. That was very nice, wasn’t it, Milly?” Sarah asked.

“Uh-huh.” Milly thought Nick sounded like a man accustomed to speaking to his Lord, but Pa had also said sometimes folks could talk the talk, even if they didn’t walk the walk. “Here, Nick, take some ham,” she said, handing him the platter, while she passed a large bowl of black-eyed peas flavored with diced ham to Bobby. He took a couple of slices, then passed it down to Sarah.

“We always pass the meat to Bobby last, because there’ll be nothing left after he’s had a chance at it,” Sarah teased from her end of the table.

Bobby, who’d been watching the progress of the ham platter as it made its way down the table, just grinned.

“He’s still a growing lad, aren’t you, Bobby?” Nick said, smiling.

“I reckon I am,” Bobby agreed. “Uncle Josh says I got hollow legs. Look, Miss Milly, I think my arms have growed some.” After helping himself to a handful of biscuits, he extended an arm. The frayed cuff extended only a little past the middle of his forearm.

“Grown some,” Milly corrected automatically, taking a knifeful of butter and passing the butter dish. “I suppose I’ll have to buy some sturdy cloth at the mercantile next time I’m there and make you a couple of new ones. Josh probably needs a couple, too, though I know he’ll say just to patch the elbows.” She sighed. While making clothing was actually something she was good at, even better than Sarah, trying to find the cash to buy cloth or anything extra right now would be difficult. “Nick, what did you think of our land?” she said, deliberately changing the subject. She could fret about Bobby’s outgrown shirts later.

“It seems good ranch country, to my novice eyes,” he said, with a self-deprecating smile. “Much bigger than I thought. We didn’t even get to the western boundary, or we would have been late returning.”

“It’s actually one of the smaller ranches in San Saba County,” Milly said, but she appreciated how impressed he seemed.

“Is that right? Back in Sussex, you two would be prominent landowners. They’d have called your father ‘Squire.’ Most English country folk have very small plots and rent from the local noble or squire. I noticed there’s fence needing repair along your boundary with Mr. Waters’s land, by the way.”

Before she could stop herself, another sigh escaped. “Yes, he won’t repair it. He doesn’t think there should be fences—‘Just let the cattle run wild ’til the fall roundup, just like we always did,’” she said, deepening her voice to imitate the man. “I suspect he used to brand quite a few yearlings as his that were actually ours, before Pa put up his fence.”

“Has he always been a difficult man?”

Milly shrugged. “He isn’t really difficult, only set in his ways.” He hadn’t acted this way when Pa was alive, of course. And before the war he had cherished dreams of gaining the ranch by his son marrying Milly, or even Sarah. Milly supposed she couldn’t blame the man for wanting to enlarge his property by persuading her to sell out—and only time would tell if he had been right that a woman couldn’t manage a ranch.

Suppertime passed pleasantly. Nick Brookfield had perfect table manners and ate like a man with a good appetite, although not with the same fervor that Bobby displayed, as if he thought every meal would be his last. When it was over, he thanked them for the delicious meal, especially Sarah for the lightness of her biscuits, which brought a grateful warmth to her sister’s eyes.

“Perhaps you should tell me what I should be doing tomorrow,” he said to Milly, as Sarah began to clear away the dishes.

“I think I’ll let Josh do that,” she said. “Why don’t you go visit with him now for a while? Bobby can see to the horses and the chickens.”

“I will.” He rose. “Would it be all right if sometime tomorrow I went into town? I need to pick up my valise at the boardinghouse, and let the proprietress know I won’t be needing the room.”

“Of course,” she said. So he had taken a room at the boardinghouse before coming to meet her and the rest of the ladies, she mused. He’d intended to spend some time getting to know her. “Actually, we need sugar from the general store, if you wouldn’t mind picking it up. Oh, and perhaps some tea? Don’t Englishmen prefer to drink that?” At least, she thought she had enough egg money in the old crockery jar to cover those two items. She was going to have to scrimp until they had enough eggs to spare from now on.

“Coffee is fine, Miss Milly. You needn’t buy anything specifically for me.”

An hour later, he found Milly ensconced in a cane back rocking chair on the porch, reading from a worn leather Bible on her lap.

“What part are you reading?” he said, looking down at it. “Ah, Psalm One—‘Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful,’” he quoted from memory.

Her hazel eyes widened. “Were you a preacher, as well as a soldier and occasional field surgeon?” she asked, gesturing toward the rocker next to her in an unspoken invitation to sit down.

He sat, smiling at her question. “No, but my second oldest brother is in holy orders, vicar of Westfield. They’ll probably make him a bishop one day. Any Scripture I know was pounded into my thick head by Richard when I was a lad.”

“And do you read the Bible now?” she asked.

He wished he could say he did. “I…I’m afraid I haven’t lately.”

He could see her filing the information away, but her eyes betrayed no judgment about the fact.

“And how did you find Josh? Does he need anything? Is he in pain?”

“He’s not in pain, no, but he needs a goodly dose of patience,” he said, appreciating the fine curve of Milly’s neck above the collar of her calico dress. “He’s restless, fretting over the need to lie there and be patient while he heals. But I think he’s reassured that I can help Bobby handle the ‘chores’—” he gave the word the old man’s drawling pronunciation, drawing a chuckle from her “—and keep this place from utter ruin until he can be up and around again. Oh, and he says there’s no need to sit up with him tonight, if you’ll let him borrow that little handbell of your mother’s he can just ring if he needs you.”

“Hmm. That sounds just like him. I’d better check on him a couple of times tonight at least. I can just picture him trying to reach the water pitcher and tearing open those wounds again. That old man would rather die than admit a weakness.”

Nick chuckled. “He said you’d say that, too.”

They were silent for a while. Nick appreciated the cool breeze and the deepening shadows as the fiery orange ball sank behind the purple hills off to their right.

“Nick, why did you leave India, and the army—if you don’t mind my asking, that is?” she added quickly.

She must have seen the reflexive stiffening of his frame and the involuntary clenching of his jaw.

“It’s getting late, and I’m keeping you from your reading,” he said, rising.

“I’m sorry, that was rude of me to pry. Please forgive me for asking,” she said, rising, too. Her face was dismayed.

“It’s all right,” he told her. “I’ll tell you about it sometime. But it’s a long story.” He’d known the question would come, but it was too soon. He wasn’t ready to shatter her illusions about him yet.

Chapter Seven

As Nick tied his bay at the hitching post outside the general store, he saw two men standing talking at the entrance, one with his hand on the door as if he meant to go inside. Nick recognized one of them as Bill Waters, the neighboring rancher who’d pressured Milly to sell out yesterday. He’d never seen the other one, the one with his hand on the door.

“Hank, I’m tellin’ you, the problem’s gettin’ bad around here,” Waters was saying, “what with them roamin’ the roads beggin’ fer handouts and such. Why, a friend a’ mine over in Sloan found half a dozen of ’em sleepin’ in his barn when he went out one mornin’. He got his shotgun and they skedaddled away like their clothes was on fire.”

The other man guffawed.

“We got t’nip it in the bud, before they try movin’ in around Simpson Creek. That’s why I’m revivin’ the Circle. Bunch of us are meetin’ at my ranch tomorrow night. Can you make it?”

Nick wondered idly who the men were talking about. Beggars of some sort—out-of-work soldiers from the recent war? Certainly not the warlike Comanche. Poor Mexicans? And what was the “circle” Waters referred to?

“Excuse me,” he said, when the men seemed oblivious of his desire to enter the store.

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